Light Meter Check

With a spot meter, incident meter and gray card check your meters under all conditions of light. Many meters have different color sensitivity. Compare your meter readings in different light sources: sunlight, skylight, 2800K, 3200K, sunset, HMI's etc. Measure incident light with your incident meter. Compare it with a spot or reflected meter reading of a gray card in the same light which is an incident reading.

When we did "meter check" on a set (comparing our different meters) the results were frightening. Spectras never agreed with Minoltas or other meters. MAKE NOTES about your meters. Avoid light glare reflections on your gray card that will give you a false higher reading. Make sure the gray card is flat to the light and not at an angle where the light rays from the source are spread over a larger area. A card at right angles to a single light would receive no light at all. Take reflected readings of a card at different angles to a light to see how this works. This is important when lighting surfaces at acute angles. An incident reading with a ball receptor can be misleading, but a flat receptor would be OK.

Some spot meters including the Digital Pentax have internal flare and will read dark areas brighter than they really are if there are bright areas surrounding the dark area. Get close to dark objects to avoid false readings, but don't let your body block part of the light on the area you are reading.

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